ADULT PLAYPENS?

Mary Shen BarnidgeCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Mary Elson painted quite a picture of the new bookstores-cum-lounges (Perspective, Feb. 4).

Once upon a time, lonely people had to hang out in bars or health clubs or the local McDonald's to socialize. But now they can cruise for their next date from behind a carefully selected, image-enhancing title--which they are free to dog-ear, spill coffee on and sticky-up with muffin crumbs--at a location suitably removed from the children's play area and still maintain their reputation as aloof, independent, intellectually inclined non-needy citizens. After all, isn't this a bookstore?

It isn't. Elson's analogy to supermarkets and hardware emporiums is not an accurate one, since customers are not permitted to eat groceries they have not yet purchased, nor to test tools unsupervised, and loiterers in those places are generally suspected of being potential shoplifters. What Elson describes are playpens for grownups--clean, safe, oh-so-respectable "places of late-night amusement."

Reading, being a solitary activity, does not require company or a public place--indeed privacy is one of the chief characteristics of serious bibliophiles. So call the new book-decorated halls community centers, day-care facilities, indoor parks, student unions for ex-students or the "meat markets" of the '90s. But don't call them bookstores.